


Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes

by sanguisdiadem



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: AH Kings AU, Ah king au, Kings AU, Mad King Ryan, Multi, ah kings, frequent and poor use of latin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2547293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguisdiadem/pseuds/sanguisdiadem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The state of nature, a war of all against all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes

The wall was falling with the slowly setting summer sun-- Correction: The wall was falling again. Gritty, loosened chunks of the bricks were crumbling inward as well as tumbling down the outside. Where the debris struck the kingdom's attackers, some scattered, running scared. The largest enemy in the offending fleet wasn't so easily deterred. His forward march was a stubborn one, short, lazy strides that gave the monster an air of nonchalance that could uproot whole civilizations.

  
"Ryan, you could help me!" a small voice demanded, squeaking in the process. On his hands and knees the builder toiled, trying desperately to patch the injured length of defense. At this rate the beasts would be through the wall before it was even closed to being finished, no thanks to his fellow soldier.

  
Behind the builder stood the warrior, staring wickedly at the wall. "Nah, you're doin' a great job, Jack," Ryan offered, raising his eyebrows and smiling wide in mock encouragement.

  
"Simon says you're both losers," a bored voice broke the chaos of the fall of their only line of defense.

  
Geoff, the leader and a skeletal rugrat lay back on a soft pillow of hay, languidly watching Jack's progress and Ryan's "help". As the Simon of the trio's new game, Simon says, he was enjoying his time on the throne. It was nothing more than a patchwork seat of golden hay and clay the color of toasted salmon. A throne it was, nonetheless, and he was King of their patch of grass behind the stables. Geoff's finger absently traced the well sewn patch on the knee of his trousers, finding the title offered nothing better to do.

  
"Who is this Simon?" Ryan shot back, watching Jack try to scare away the chickens and that stubborn donkey. Always ready with questions, Ryan was. "And why is the game named after him? We haven't had a King Simon. Like. Ever."

  
The tallest of the three stood to the side of Jack's ruined fortress for King "Simon". His clothes were simple, kept oddly pristine for a boy of his age. Already he was of the belief that seeing is, well, believing. If you held yourself, presented yourself like royalty then you are. It's that simple.

  
The boys were well aware that they were not royalty, not directly. Every so often an argument could be heard over a barrel in one of the taverns or across the counter in the Mercantile Shop about who begot who, who didn't beget who, who allegedly or scandalously begot who; the variations were as endless as the theories. Everyone in the kingdom was born of some line or another, some ancient vine of blood.

  
"I don't know, but the way yer goin' you're never gonna be him," Geoff said, repressing an eye roll. No, it wasn't so much repressed, it was that the subject didn't warrant an eye roll. If the preteen rolled his eyes at every sentence he found boring or absolutely useless they might up and roll out of his head. Seemingly sleepy, apathetic eyes wandered around the their yard. It wasn't much, just a patch of brittle grass with a pattern of dusty, barren patches; scars the earth had acquired.

  
"If I'm never going to be Simon then how can someone else win the game?" Ryan asked as he turned towards the throne with his eyebrows pinched in.

  
"That's not my problem," Geoff said with a cock of his head, " _Simon says_ that's not my problem."

  
"Simon _says_  it is. Is that how this works? Anyone can take the crown and call themselves Simon? "

  
"No!" Geoff's voice cracked around the word as he pushed himself up from his golden throne.

"There's no rule that says I couldn't," Ryan said. It was true, Geoff never explicitly said he couldn't.

"Do you wanna take this outside, asshole?!" Geoff shouted, question punctuated by his curse. He was still Simon, so what he says does, cursing included. As long as his mom didn't know.

  
"We _**ARE**_ outside!"

  
" ** _GOOD_**."

  
Geoff stalked forward, pushing Ryan twice. That didn't help the situation. Before Geoff could get another push in, Ryan grabbed for Geoff's neck, getting his arm around it. The two fell over, sloppily throwing untrained jabs at each other. They roughhoused right out of their clearing, much to Jack's disapproval. Jack stood from the mess of his work, following his friends.

  
"Guys! /Guys/. Come on. Don't--" but Jack's pleading was cut short as his head popped through the hedge. The breath of a new beast rustled his bangs as he swallowed tightly, immediately going to a knee. The crown of his burnt brown head rocketed forward as he bowed his head, closed his eyed respectfully.

  
Silhouetted high atop a flaxen chestnut horse in the pale yellow of the very last of the sunset was a face they were all familiar with. To Jack's right, Geoff and Ryan both stool speechless, for once. Ryan's scarless fist just barely kept its purchase at the collar of Geoff's shirt. Geoff's scarred right fist hung in the air, void of its momentum.

  
The most recognized face in the kingdom tilted down to them. His royalty, the King of the Hunt, King Hullum stared down over the head of his horse at the three obstacles in his way.

  
"Watch your step, boys."

  
At the smallest pull of his hands, Hullum's horse started its march again, carefully avoiding all the pesky humans in the road. It's tail flicked, annoyed as it passed the group of youths. If they had been watching closely, they would have caught the King's small smirk.

  
All three heads turned to watch their leader go about his way. Ryan's hand untangled from Geoff's evergreen shirt and Geoff's fist dropped to his side instead of Ryan's jaw.

  
"Where's he going, all by himself at the end of the day?" Ryan asked, suspicion barely covered by his honest curiosity. The kid took a step after the King's horse, watching the man's stiff back bounce roughly with every step his horse took.

  
"He's the king, he's going' wherever the hell he wants." They never declared a new 'Simon' meaning Geoff, too, was king and could do whatever the hell he wanted. A guy could get used to that feeling.

  
"He's going North," Jack said helpfully. North held few things, so there were few things the King could be going to do.

  
Ignoring Jack's addition, Ryan turned on Geoff, eyes narrowed.

  
"Yeah, but what's he doing _alone?_ Not a single Knight with him. Isn't that funny to you?"

  
"I'm not laughin'. But is is pretty weird," Geoff snarked. The kid always had to reply wittily. See, he would agreed with people, of course, but on only on his own terms.

  
"Weird, as in we should go see what's so weird about it?" It wasn't a question, Ryan was just announcing what that look in Geoff's eyes meant. The friend's tiff had evaporated in light of a more interesting development.

  
"Weird as he could get in trouble alone," Jack amended. Let him convince himself that he's going to protect the King. He has to go either way, because the other two were going, but a fake valiant cause will help motivate the poor boy.

  
Unknowingly, King and trusted horse ventured on down the trail, towing the trio of trailing not-yet-teens. With the vanishing sun on his left the King guided his horse less than a mile from from the limits of the City. This far out in the gently rolling and sparsely flowered flatland, the only notable landmark, looking forward, was the Altar.

  
The Altar was another common arguing point among the Achievians. No one, from the learned scribes in the New Library of Gartner to the decrepit, black haired, skeleton of a man with his stories of Old in the main city square, could agree on why the damn mountain was called "The Altar." The official answer to this question, written in the still crisp pages of the leather bound history books, was the fact that all the altars in all the churches of kingdom were built from the blessed, smooth stone hauled off the side of the mountain. Some citizens, not satisfied with the simple answer, spun tails about the makeup of the landmark. The top was inexplicably flat. When leaves blew through the streets and firelight flicker on walls, friends and lovers liked to paint the story over their pints and popped corn of sacrifices and gruesome blood offerings atop the Altar to Gods long buried. The third answer, for those who were not satisfied with the simple or bone-chilling reasons, could be dressed up for all your mystical needs. Around the same friendly fires and down the same windy streets, a brave, determined few spun tails of aided conquest and magic during the push towards the eventual victory at the Battle of Botte. They said, in this miraculous battle, the Gods were not absently waiting gifts. They were active participants. They were the true victors.

  
Stories, they're all just stories.

  
Still, the tales malicious mountain men lurking in caves and forceful human sacrifices floated around in the kid's minds. Tired from the steady climb the boys silently followed as the King's unofficial and absolutely useless guard. Geoff had a pretty sharp rock in his pocket. That might buy, oh, two seconds of distraction?

  
Just as they began to fear Jack's wheezing may alert the King to their presence, the slow, ceremonial clop of hooves slowed and turned into a barely noticeable gap between two trees. The three scrambled to find sanctuary in the undergrowth, cramming themselves into the bushes. They only had to wedge their way a short distance before they could see the stage from one edge of the square clearing the King had chosen for whatever he was doing out here. Two of the other edges were lined with a thick tangle of brush and trees, almost mirrors of their own hiding spot. The fourth edge, the edge the King was slowly approaching, was a flat expanse of stone that rose the height of three humans into the air. It wasn't made of the same grey stone the rest of the Altar was. It was dark and rich, smooth and black as a starless night sky.

  
"What's he doin'?" Geoff hissed, elbowing Jack's arm away from his side roughly.

  
"Shush." Ryan hissed back. This boy's eyes weren't on the King. They were studying the ground, studying the trees, the rock, the sky. There had to be something. There had to be some clue as to what was going on.

  
Jack's eyes hadn't left the King since they started their journey. In a concerned tone he brought everyone's eyes to one place. "Guys..."

  
Together three pairs of eyes focused on the dull silver glint in the King's right hand. Jack's mouth dropped open only to be closed just as quickly by Geoff's hand. Jack's eyes were pleading as he glanced up at his friend. They couldn't just let the King hurt himself. It wasn't right. With a slow shake of his head, Geoff's distant eyes turned back to the clearing.

  
Hullum stood with his back board straight, his shoulders squared in a way that was odd for the sarcastic but kind and thorough King. Royal, dusty, blond hair shifted out of place as the wind picked up, tugging his cloak, clothes, and the clouds to the North, in the direction of the obsidian colored wall.

  
From their position, the kids could see the dagger rise to make the tip meet the King's opposite palm. Not a muscle in his face shifted as the King drug the dagger around his palm, opening a learned wound. The area had long ago grown accustomed to the damage.

  
"What did he carve?" whispered Jack.

  
Ryan squinted at the King's back, "A compass?"

"It was a star," Geoff said near inaudibly. 

  
As graceful as a living statue, King Hullum marched to the wall, raising his palm. Ryan's eyes had time to follow only one drop of dark liquid on its crash course with the ground. Before the drop could properly soak into the dust, the clearing filled with blinding light. All three watchers jumped, rustling backwards with blinking eyes and startled hearts as branches grabbed their clothes.

  
The glow faded from blinding white to pale gold in seconds. Their small hands shielded their eyes as the boys strove to see what was happening. The King now stood with his left hand flat against a wall that was no longer ordinary, flat, black rock. Etched in the the stone now shown a monument unlike any they boys had seen. It was pure gold, bright as the sun; unwritten in any text and not drawn in any piece of art. There was no mistaking the pull in their chests as anything other than desire.

  
Scarlet liquid ran through the outline four glinting, gold squares and one of obsidian. In some sickening halo around the tower, the the dark liquid squinted back at the boys as it crawled across the stone, consuming the wall in some ancient vine of blood. The moments passed as hours would until the liquid began to melt, burning almost the color of royalty before disappearing all together.

  
King Hullum let a quiet, tired sigh escape his lips as he retreated to clamber atop his horse once more. Soft sounds carried the man back to the path that led home, leaving the boys to sit in their silence, staring at the again black wall. Above their heads, the first star of the night blinked at the City. Nothing blinked back.


End file.
